SEO From The Front Lines

When Links Go Wrong: Why News and Media Publishers Need To Embrace Earned Links and Ditch Nofollow

SEO From The Front Lines

Show Notes

If you earn a powerful link, you should receive that link. Unfortunately, many news and media publishers are nofollowing those links, which tells Google to not pass signals, including PageRank, downstream to the pages that earned those links.

I cover the situation, including examples of that happening, why it’s happening, how Google’s view of nofollow has changed over the years, and even include an example of it happening to me! In addition, I cover important FAQs for news and media publishers that might be nofollowing links now (in order to clear up any confusion about when to link normally versus using nofollow).

A link is a terrible thing to waste, so please link out normally. Site owners will appreciate it, Google will appreciate, and the entire web ecosystem will appreciate it.

Blog post covering the topic: https://www.gsqi.com/marketing-blog/news-media-publishers-link-out-ditch-nofollow/

Chapters: 00:00 When links go wrong. Why some news and media publishers are nofollowing links. 02:08 Examples of news and media publishers nofollowing earned links. 03:30 Link Madness Inception: When it happened to me recently! 04:47 But wait, nofollow is just a hint to Google now. 06:00 Help me, help you. FAQs for news and media publishers. 08:57 Just link out normally. It’s the way the web works.

Follow me on X: https://x.com/glenngabe Connect with me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/glenngabe/ Find me on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/glenngabe.bsky.social

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